


End Horizon

by necronism



Category: Beyond Skyline (2017), Skyline (2010)
Genre: (Big WIP and subject to change. A lot.), Beyond Skyline - Freeform, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:22:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22743964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/necronism/pseuds/necronism
Summary: Set periodically through the ending events of Beyond Skyline, Mark Corley and the rest of the world are setting to rebuild past the atmosphere. With their recently procured alien ship, humanity is retaining its existence, both through means of connecting faces to drones as well as discovering how the alien technology itself works. They are a stranded race, and now with nature quickly reclaiming the earth and driving the remaining humans from it, they need to find a new home.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	1. Reclamation

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, I'd like to thank Liam O'Donnell himself for not only lending me the original scripts of the first and second movies, but also for answering all my questions and being overall supportive and kind. This movie resonated with me in a way I couldn't describe, but at a time in my life where a distraction was needed, it succeeded and I was able to write properly again for the first time in years.
> 
> All this being said, many sections and chapters are subject to change, move, or be completely rewritten. Nothing is set in stone and everything is flexible, as the canon will be further restructured for the third installment. Original alien creations are for dramatic story development only and the only real big tangent from the original source. I apologize for any errors as my eyes tend to skip even during the editing process.

It was in theory that the first twenty-four hours after mankind's hypothetical disappearance would be crucial to the earth's revitalization. Nature would immediately push back against the grip civilization had on Her surface. The weeds that tangled up the abandoned lawns had more right to be here than the imported sod it now attempted devour, the atmosphere shifting as it took its first breath since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. It was also in theory that it would be hundreds of thousands of years before evidence of human civilization and the scars they left upon the planet were buried; for humankind to be as mythological and wondrous as dinosaurs themselves. Whoever would step foot on this planet millions of years later, or whatever humanoid intelligence would replace humans, would find mankind as complicated and indecipherable as scientists have found any other pre-civilization discovery. They would base their assumptions on where they found skeletal remains and what, besides the Twinkie, survived the revolution of the earth.

When the time came for mankind to be plucked from the cities, savannahs, and suburbia, it came at a time rather unexpected. It was too quick for humans to develop a theory as to why these visitors were doing what they were, or how many more would visit. By the third day of an invasion most unprecedented, most of the world had been extracted from their familiar atmosphere. Where they went, no one seemed to know. All they knew is that a ship would pass over their town, their cities, and watched as strangers and neighbors alike gathered to watch the lights beam from the mothership. Some called it a disaster while others figure it was either now or never.

However, by the third day the same naysayers and believers alike were gone.

On the fourth day, a ship crashed into the Laotian wilderness following an explosion. What became of survival for a lucky few was soon evolving into a rebellion against some higher power; one that didn’t seek revenge on humans, but simply harvested them. For what purpose, among so many other questions, was it for? A blue siren light, an insurmountable power able to pull people into the air, it was science fiction to them, if not a horrific realization some authors may have been correct.

It wouldn’t be until a decade later would anyone begin to make a move against their invaders, as for now they were left as a select and frightened few. They didn’t even know if they were the lucky ones as time passed, as time itself became less of a factor for work, survival, instead going by wherever the sun or moon was in the sky. Weeks, months, and years would pass after the one move that kept them inside their own skin.

Word spread fast (or as fast as it could with the dwindling aid of television news and printed word) about what would be described as a “battleground” between humans and aliens. The details were scattered, ranging from a rogue alien coming to their aid alongside humans, with the capability to not only reverse the effects of the siren light, but offer an insight to develop an immunity. All of it was as confusing as it sounded to many people who had only seen the ship itself. Those who bore witness to the creatures the ship created within were those whose last memories were of their own screams.

Slowly, the introduction of alien life alongside humans would evolve. Over the next two years after the initial invasion, the downed ship would become a hub of worldwide communication and uncovering the mystery behind the invasion. However, for those two years, it was an upward struggle to understand the technology. It became known relatively quickly that the aliens that had attacked, had been in the ship working, were merely drones, awakened by the insertion of a brain; an empty shell with everything inside activated once it was attached to a valuable power source.

The entire _ship_ , in fact, seemed to be alive, made of some gathered microorganism, living as one and able to repair itself. In its own way, it was a biomechanical structure, more to say it was as biological as it was mechanical; as living as it was lived in. Once its own power-source, what appeared to be the same workings as the siren light’s egg, was introduced to the heart of the ship, it began making its own repairs. A slow and steady upward climb to human’s new wave of evolution began then, with the help of those who had managed to navigate the ship before escaping it.

Among this crew were Mark Corley, Audrey Kline, and Sua Keomany, sole survivors of the battleground amid the Lao ruins. The desecration of ancient tombs, temples, had been irreparable and damn near irredeemable but at this point many people were beyond praying. The only other reliable witness of the scene, and had been the sole alien contributor, could not in fact relay his stories.

Trent Corley was once a human, but being a survivor of so much more, had been released from the siren’s light, so to speak. He had introduced the possibility of immunity to the light through exposure, as dangerous as it was, but he hadn’t been alone with the defiance. _Jarrod_ , Mark told him, was the name of the man - well, alien - he had met on the ship that had helped him through the thick of it. It was difficult to explain how he came to know so much about Jarrod and his wife, Elaine, through a simple touch but many of those frantic scenes were hazed for him. Burdened with the then-infant Rose, he had much more on his mind. And he had watched the same girl from a newborn to a young child in two days, and into what could be assumed as a teenager by the actual age of five.

By then, they were already learning to handle the ship on its own and once again, mankind touched the stars. Armed only with their self-taught knowledge of the ship, with Mark and Trent at the helm, they were able to leave Earth’s atmosphere and hover just outside the ring of various satellites. Their initial concern was receiving feedback from the space station, but prolonged silence only led them to believe that communications had been lost first, and then chaos ensued.

It wasn’t a particularly joyful revelation, but one nonetheless. The ship dwarfed the Destiny module, casting its shadow across the quiet metal skeleton several times on their test runs. Perhaps ten years ago, Mark had been a police officer, looking to become a detective, with a son and a wife. Never could he have pictured himself standing before the forward windows of the ship, staring at the clouds passing over the abandoned Earth’s surface as nature reclaimed the land for its own.

In the year of 2017, mankind came face to face with their Sixth Extinction. By early 2020, they had claimed the skies once more and mankind’s absence on the planet Earth’s surface gave way to overwhelming wildlife recovery. The less time they spent down there, the better, Mark found. Trees seemed to take a sentient life of their own in the streets, roots growing so rapidly around lamp posts and abandoned cars that one might think it was the now-spatial humans that were suspended in time. Their return to earth was merely to scavenge for what they knew as their own and what could not yet be replicated by the ship.

It was on missions like these that Mark Corley could finally let himself relax. It was a familiar world despite how unrecognizable it had become. Washington was covered in greenery, vines and moss crawling up the bases of every monument within a storm’s reach of water. The decay of the natural world seemed to slow down. Cars left on the streets were still in good shape despite the harsh storms and nature seeing to them as much as they could. The rain fell harder, colder, the winds whipping hurricanes and tornadoes as if they were every-day breezes.

 _The world is reverting itself_ , he had noted one night, watching from the basement window of an abandoned house. He had only experienced one tornado in his youth and he remembered the road in his ears, shaking him to the core - but this was something much more monstrous. These winds were capable of leveling the Washington monument, as he found during a trip. It lay broken almost in the middle, shattered against the earth below. Vicious vines had strangled the base in place, which still seemed partially ripped from the ground.

He remembered staring in awe, having to take a moment to remember just which reality he had been thrown into. It was surreal to see the icons of a once-thriving nation reduced to rubble. Even the Lincoln Memorial’s columns had been weathered so thin they eventually collapsed, taking the front of the site with it. Some pillars had been whipped up from the stronger storms and were founded jutting from the earth like splinters a half-mile away. It always looked natural once the ground healed over it, sealing it in place from the roots of nearby trees or the heavy shawl of creeping plants. A man’s wasteland had truly evolved into something greater; _the concrete jungle_.


	2. Mark

It felt good to feel the air again, a simple breeze through his hair. It had been four months since Mark had last visited their landing zone. Now freshly dropped off outside of the city limits, he shouldered his pack and set off. It was a gamble to walk along out here in the wilderness as varying witness accounts of larger prey animals getting bolder were starting to spike. Those they communicated with along the small communities of survivors had explained they were now in the process of designing and erecting proper barriers. This was no zombie hoard that they feared, but instead anything that might hunt them down.

His own radio crackled at his side. The volume nod was twisted and he found himself once again in silence. Only the breeze across the tall grass accompanied him, each step amplified by the dry plants crunching underneath. No matter how many times they walked through here a path refused to take shape. The earth knew how to fight back against the simplest of things now. The rifle of his shoulder cast a large span outwards, parting grass and shrubbery as if he might be walking with his arms wide open.

_ Into the great, wide open _ .

The only reason for dropping a few miles away was for their own safety. There was never any telling what gangs would be formed, who or which animals chose to be brave that day because they were either hungry or bored enough. While Mark was a stellar marksman with his rifle, he had once been a cop only handling the typical sidearm. Anyone could learn, anyone could evolve now. He knew by the faded graffiti under the usual bridges he passed through that no one had come this way in a while. That was a bit of a plus. This wouldn’t have to be an entire day of avoiding others who were looking for the same thing he was -  **_anything_ ** .

Once at the city limits, the divide was clear. While the earth fought to consume the pavement it still needed work to do. It crept a little closer inwards to the epicenter of the city every time he visited.  _ Maybe four, five yards this time, _ Mark noted as his foot falls turned to solid steps.  _ That Honda isn’t getting any closer to driving off anyway _ .

Instinctively he checked back seats and trunks, sometimes under the hood. Despite having gone through this nearly a hundred times he still hoped to find something, be it a survivor cowering or a stash not properly hidden. Each step was mechanical from here on out, knowing exactly where to lean or step or avoid broken glass. The new roots he tripped over on his way to the Staten Island Mall were only taken note of. Mark knew he was their inconvenience, not the other way around.

The shrill cry of the wind through shattered window panes drew his gaze upward to the buildings above. To him, it had become semblance of wind chimes set outside on a front porch. Fragments of glass glittered as they fell. Mark raised an arm to shield his face but otherwise walked unbothered and unscathed.

By the time he reached the mall, Mark had counted four cars missing from his usual routes. They were never found, not even a hint of them littered across the next street from a storm. They simply had ceased to be in this world. The eastern block of the mall had now fallen in on itself. Sections of the roof were visibly cast sideways against themselves like dominoes. He couldn’t imagine the damage inside because of this, or how many stores had been flattened because of it.

He greeted the one mannequin inside that survived its own ware, missing an arm and dented to hell and back, but no storm had taken it somehow. It had become his new Statue of Liberty - considering the previous one had been cleaved by Boeing.

Most of the stores on the bottom floor had been ransacked the second the stragglers of the Ascension realized they were going to be left behind for whatever purpose. At first, it had been for materialistic possessions, televisions, gaming consoles and laptops, things that could fill the breach. As time went on, more and more clothes would be taken with more of a responsible idea in mind. The food in the cafeteria kitchen had spoiled long before people started giving a damn, but they had taken the effort to clean it to at least reside there, use the tools, stoves, sinks. From what Mark could remember from his last visit here it was still relatively taken care of, which meant someone was coming around.

Everyone’s own greed had been an instinctive flight here to take what they could. Whether it was to have it for themselves or to become monetary value, Mark wasn’t sure. Coins and bills were still applicable down here on Earth for trade of all sorts, but even Audrey (who didn’t usually care to advise their trips) assumed eventually, people would need something more, something vital to the working world.

Nevertheless, it was strange to peer into a brand clothing store to see the hangers and shelves stripped nearly bare. Mannequins had been toppled and broken in order to get the last of what was left. Mark didn’t see it as a tactless effort at all; it was different these days when there came to be nothing left. He could stop in the several electronic stores and search for batteries and always manage to find something there. Trent had told him that he could take the back out of the remaining consoles or laptops and scrap the screws and the hardware.

An alien ship could build many things but it didn’t understand the human design of a simple screw.

After all, gasoline was a weapon now. Fossil fuels wouldn’t be mined any longer so the remaining shell of the Earth could thank them for that. Basic electricity could be stored in generators, water ran mostly cleaner outside of the city limits. But what powered it all, what was the heart of so many operations, came down to a small chip much like the one Mark held in the palm of his hand. Alright, maybe he somewhat understood the importance.

His watch read  _ 10:39 _ when he checked it. Enough time for a lot of things. Since the mall seemed relatively abandoned today (more so than usual) he didn’t feel the urge to keep looking over his shoulder. For once he could relax, setting down his small pack and taking out the various screwdrivers to get to work on prying apart the broken laptops left behind.

_ I don’t know what you need these for, kid, but… _

He was surprised that his backpack wasn’t weighing him down by the tame he came to the one set of stairs that had held together. His footsteps echoed - another thing he was no longer worried about today. From the second floor he could see just where the roof had caved in. Checking the map it had taken several counter services for food, so, no real loss there for him. A few coats from a ransacked clothing store, a pair of shoes for Rose -  _ God, she really grows outta these fast. Why do I even bother? _

His last stop had been to one of the jewelry departments. To no surprise, almost everything had been taken from the display counters and each step was met with the crunch of glass. This wasn’t his usual routine so no supplies had been brought with him that might be able to crack into the safe or some of the more unbreakable displays. The necklaces inside were rattled around but untouched. He pressed a few fingers to the glass as he passed plastic hands that no longer held any rings.  _ The last time he had been in one of these places had been with _ …

Mark stood straight.  _ No, not today _ .

With the butt-end of his rifle he knocked in locked cases in the back. The door had only been opened a few weeks ago but since it had been a silent operation he wasn’t surprised to see that no one had bothered with it since. Chains of any metal were taken, it didn’t matter if it was a necklace or a bracelet. So long as it held when he yanked it from both ends he took it. It had been his first mistake to keep going even when he felt he had more room in his own pockets. Even when he felt something prickle the back of his neck.

_ Doubt? _

After turning his head to look out at the main floor of the jewelry store, he brought down the rifle into the glass.

The sound of the alarm nearly sent him into shock, gone in an instant and replaced with a high-pitch whine of electricity bursting at the seams. A red light flared on and off from above, lighting up the room like a warzone. Mark, feeling bold, hadn’t thought to bring along a reconnaissance team. They hadn’t been here in two weeks but nothing seemed to drastically change around here once the weather settled. That had been his second mistake.

“ _ Shhhhit _ ,” he hissed, freezing for what felt like too long.

Through the constant wail of the alarm he could hear something. It felt, as well as sounded, like a growing vibration. The aftershocks that followed a rocket launching were similar. Only when he felt it through his boots did he get a clue. Someone was coming up the stairs.

“ _ Shit _ .”


	3. Chapter 3

It must have been the sound of glass being newly broken that drew in  _ their  _ attention, as no one would be bold looking for anything unless they knew something others didn’t. Mark’s second mistake became a rather glaring target on his back.

Hoping the sound of the alarm would cover his gun, he took out his firearm and raised it to the plastic cover. One shot changed the pitch in the room, the second knocked the speaker out. The light flickered out shortly after. He rubbed at his ears to shake off the whine that lingered and would for some time, he figured. Through it all he could now hear voices. They weren’t careless either, they were giving directions. Four, maybe five? God, he couldn’t hear a damn thing.

His first idea was to shut the door and hope they went away. Finding the handle and the lock of the door itself had been cut away with power tools meant he could no longer consider this “flight mode”. It had been his own damn suggestion to keep fighting and killing to a minimum, and they hadn’t ever really been backed into a corner like this ever before.

_ That’s a little ironic, Corley. Trent will get a kick out of this if I even make it back _ .

The rifle was completely shouldered now, strap over his head and across his chest. Easiest way out was with a firearm anyway, he would have a better chance at lining up his shot in a panic.  _ Remember your training _ . The ringing refused to ease for him, however. The voices, as far as he could tell, were coming closer. Probably inside by now. He crouched behind the door, raising his watch to the very edge of the breach until he could see a vague reflection.

Three men, or rather two men and one very tall-  _ Oh, this just keeps getting better _ . The alien towered above his company, wearing what resembled armor and clothes beneath. There was no mistaking the red glow of its eyes, the slight flickering as they moved back and forth in its skull. Twisting his wrist a bit he could see that, like his human companions, he too was armed, holding a long-gun in one clawed hand. They were hesitant to walk across the glass with its bare, almost hoof-like feet and remained closer to the door instead.

With two shots, Mark bet he could take down the other two and get around the alien. They were big but that didn’t always make them stronger. Armed, but that didn’t make them a pro.

“Yo, Heady, you think they’re even here?”

Alright, he was beginning to understand them more clearly. That helped.

“We were just downstairs! Would’a seen them coming down the stairs or something. Santo, just keep an eye on the rest of the mall.”

There was a low hum in response, a guttural clicking in the chest of the alien as they gave an upward nod and turned their back.  _ Divine intervention, maybe? _

Mark wasn’t taking a chance. He moved to the other side of the door, still crouching. and set the muzzle of his handgun through the breach. It was a bit of a strain, but he knew it would work the same. Two for the siren, two for these guys, four left if that thug gave him trouble. He didn’t even hear the sound of his own gun as it fired but he wasn’t going to stick around to find out if he had landed his shot.

He stood and kicked open the door, gun up and turning to the man that looked as relieved as he was furious. Mark fired again only to hit him in the shoulder, the thick armor taking the brunt of the force. It still broke through and knocked the man back, gun turned away from him. He fired again, counting down the amount of bullets in his head. The man’s head snapped back and he fell behind the counter with his companion. Mark didn’t even have time to suck in a breath.

In these mere seconds, the alien had turned and brought its gun up to the other hand. They were awkward holding it correctly, finger barely able to fully grip the twin trigger. But it was still there, with two empty voids staring back at him from across the room.

_ Shotgun _ ,  _ Dad! I call shotgun! _

He ducked in time to avoid the spray of metal and glass. It burst over his head and into his hair. Bits of glass chipped into scalp and ears but he didn’t have time to feel it, didn’t have time to assess his damage. Had that been one barrel or two? The thing’s claw was big and clumsy enough to accidentally pull both, and he’d love to see how it would reload in time.

Sucking in a breath, he had no other choice but to get right back up and aim again. The alien had struggled with reloading the gun and tossed it aside, instead braving the broken glass to get his fallen friend’s rifle. By the time it had even picked it up, Mark was able to pull over his own. The recoil from the sporadic burst with only one arm was wild, feeling his shoulder nearly dislocate at once. The bullets cut in a sharp line across the store, littering the side wall. The only place it didn’t have holes was where the alien had been. Maybe even then, its blood splattered across the wallpaper. Not enough to kill him, Mark noted, as the alien staggered down to one knee and cried out. It was no longer bothered with a gun.

Good enough to get them at the hip, he convinced himself. He leapt over the blasted counter and headed right for the door. A heavy claw grabbed at the backpack and pulled him down. Glass splintered into his palms. The alien adjusted its grip on Mark and pulled him up as it stood. Mark set another few rounds into its chest, enough to make it let go, rethink its efforts to be the hero here.  _ How the hell was it still holding on? _

“Come on, man,” he muttered, jamming the muzzle of the gun against it and firing again. A last ditch effort to kill, no longer relying on a non-lethal effort. If that initial attempt could be considered as such. This time it knocked the alien back through the doorway of the store and closer to the railing of the second floor. Mark sighed, knowing a simple tap wouldn’t do. He closed the space and rammed the stock into the alien’s chest. It felt like shoving into a fridge but it was still knocked clear over. Mark only caught a blurred glimpse of legs. A confused silence was quickly followed by a thud.

Call it morbid curiosity, but he also needed to know if the damn thing was dead.  _ Not “thing,” Mark. It was someone once _ . He peered over in time to see the red glow flicker and die behind the creature’s eyes.

Both of the men’s guns were confiscated. They were a burden to shoulder along with everything else but he managed. They were searched for any intel or scraps but they were cleaned out already. What armor he could work off their corpse without feeling a little ashamed of himself was looped up the muzzles of the rifles. He looked like a right highwayman setting back the way he had come. It was only noon by the time he had returned to the drop point, rolling a silver ring between his fingers.


	4. Chapter 4

Mark had never grown too used to being pulled up into a ship by a beam of any kind. The sense of weightlessness was not one they encountered in space on their own. Going from pull of Earth to their own ship was a pressuring transition but seemed to be relatively similar to their own planet’s. By the time he was stepping out from the light of the beam, he felt as though all his nerves had been pulled up to his throat. There was a gasping breath before he began to cough.

“Easy,” a bridge officer called out from across the room. The floor of the ship wound shut together, the black matter entangling like vines until there was no more of the earth left to see. He was left with the tremendous silence of the bridge, his own slow breaths in between. Once he collected himself, all three rifles were dropped to the floor along with his pack.

The officer repeated himself, as more of a demand now.  _ Easy _ .

“They’re not loaded, got the clips in my pack.” Then, as he remembered where he was, he added, “Where’s Trent?”

The officer nodded over his shoulder toward the entrance of the bridge and he headed right through, looking around. The heart of this ship hadn’t changed much since they had taken control of it. Surveillance was still a tricky matter as only those who had been transferred into their shell of a body were able to maintain a persistent link to the technology. As of right now, the holographic map swelled beyond its surveyors to chart the rest of Staten Island. Mark looked up into the slowly spinning globe.

“I doubt anyone saw what happened,” he muttered to no one, but still felt a hand gently pat his shoulder as a condolence. He looked up and over to find Trent there, offering what could be read as a sympathetic look. He knew if Trent could still smile it would be enough to let Mark relax his shoulders and drop his burden for a few minutes.

“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” Mark added. Were they to have caught any glimpse of where Mark had been and the trouble he had run into, they knew he could handle himself either way. There would be no reaching him in time had Mark never been made aware of their presence. He sighed and pulled from his son’s touch to go to the map. 

Two consoles rose from the floor of the ship. One had been here from the beginning and Mark had briefly seen a previous pilot use it, felt his own pain as he placed his hand to the flat panel. The spike that, while not thick or serrated, had still left irreparable nerve damage to his hand. Next to this one was another that, to the best of their ability, had been coaxed from the ship to resemble what a human might use. Whatever the ship was made out of it, it learned and adapted to its passengers.

He pressed a few fingers to the screen and pushed upwards. The map pulled in tight on a location, giving them an overhead view of the mall and the surrounding streets. Trent nodded upwards to the caved-in roof.

“Didn’t get a chance to look,” Mark said, glancing over to him. He dragged down on the console again, stopping to trace what had been their mark for caution, alarm. Several red circles blipped up along the rooms of the interior. “Can’t imagine there are more stores with working electricity in there. Probably a private generator.”

“We can’t expect everyone to have tripped those by now,” a voice said from behind Mark, who frowned. He turned to see Calvin Matthews, the man they had appointed as the head of their security on board the ship. Calvin was clean-cut, as any former military man would be; built like a brick wall and almost as impossible to move. He was still a vigorous leader, perhaps a little younger than Mark, but he had grayed early at the temples. Considering the state of the world now it may have happened more recently. He looked like someone Mark would imagine Trent to look like at that age. The invasion had only sent him into fight mode like so many others and always said that even had his brain been put into one of those drones, he’d still be right here, alongside their unit.

Mark admired him for that, just not at the moment.

“You’d think we wouldn’t  _ still _ be dealing with this,” Mark grumbled.

“It’s the one reason we won’t go into any banks.” Calvin stepped to the console and directed the map several blocks over to the rest of the shopping district. “Once those doors seal it would take a bigger army than the two of us to get out of there.”

“I’d had to be stuck anywhere too long with you.”

Calvin smiled but it was clearly out of respect for Trent being right there. He may not have been able to speak up but even someone who wasn’t the boy’s father could feel the judgmental stare. A few new locations were marked for a ground crew, circling several hardware stores and the abandoned Costco. For a couple years they had done their best to strip the island free of its scraps and none of it ever felt important. Mark touched the ring in his pocket.

“I was nearly ambushed.” Mark cleared his throat, reaching over to bring the map back over to the mall. “I shot out the alarm in the back,  _ here _ , but there’s probably more stores with a storage room we haven’t searched yet. Soon as it went off, three guys were on their way up. Didn’t even pass them on the way in.”

“They could have followed you.”

“First mistake, then. Two men in armor, old rifles - left those out for you, by the way, and a…”  _ How did he put this lightly? _ “They had a drone with them. I can’t say I’m  _ completely  _ surprised some may have picked up their old habits, it was--”

“Familiar, I’m sure.” Calvin gave Mark a sidelong glance, eyes briefly flicking to Trent who stood at his father’s side. He always did. And Trent stared back with an accusing glare. “We gave them their free will, but it’s still up to them what they choose to do with it. They obviously won’t have the same firepower and medical equipment that we do. After nearly three years, I won’t lie… it’s surprising to find them alive.”

Mark frowned again, staring down at his hands that gripped the first console. Almost his entire weight was being forced on it. He needed a moment to get his thoughts back together. A single desperate survivor was one thing. Maybe they had found a way to keep him healthy. Maybe they knew something this entire ship didn’t. That was impossible. Any vaccines or supplements they used had been synthesized by and kept on this ship. Maybe it was luck after all.

“Well, it’s dead… whoever they were.”

There was always that disconnect with some of these creatures. It was hard to remember they were still human sometimes with the way they acted, the way they were forced into silence with little to no means of communication. The process of distributing new identities by going through the DMV’s registered licenses of the surrounding districts had taken nearly two years to sift through. And even then, some of these people were left as strangers to their own kind. Some had written their names down and wore it on their sleeve just so they could still exist.

Trent, having observed all of this while it unfolded, now let out a sound akin to a sigh. There was no other way sometimes, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t starting to get tired of killing being an answer. He placed a hand on Mark’s shoulder before letting it fall away. He turned and left, long strides falling silent. Mark didn’t want to tell him to wait and listen to all of this crap. It wasn’t important.

It was Mark’s turn to sigh.

“It could barely pull the trigger on the gun they had given them. Looked more like a child than anything.” He closed his eyes and at once re-lived the last seconds of the other creature. A blur unaccompanied by a cry for help or out of pain. “Maybe I’m not very proud of how that happened.”

“You were a cop, Corley. You’ve seen the best and the worst of the force when it comes to those who refuse to stand down. The second they pull a weapon, their fate is sealed.”

Mark didn’t like that one bit, feeling a prickle along the back of his neck. The worst he had seen out of his own department had been the cover-up of a shooting of a 14-year-old Latin American boy. Every time Matthews or anyone tried to explain that his reaction was justified for their survival, he couldn’t help but think back on that case. The officers who shot that kid weren’t keeping themselves safe. It had been two years before his wife passed away and he remembered Rose trying to get the answers out of him.

“... you should be more concerned about yourself,” came Calvin’s voice, cutting through the whine that still berated Mark’s ear drums. 

He blinked, drawing in a sharp breath.  _ How much time had passed just then? _

“I’m fine. Not a scratch on me.”

Calvin leaned back slightly and saw otherwise. Small pieces of glass were still embedded into Mark’s neck and ears but he didn’t even seem to notice. Blood had run down below his collar and was now drying.

“Yeah, you look like a hundred bucks, Corley. Get yourself fixed the hell up.”

The medical wing had been redesigned from what the ship must have assumed would still be used as a transplant facility. It was an open area with walkways that would drop into nothingness. Railings were manually installed the same time they were officially setting up their equipment. Mark ran his hand along the cool metal as he crossed into the center gathering of the rotunda. He had picked out some glass from his scalp along the way, flicking it over the side. It fell, not into darkness, but far out of sight. Thankfully this hangar of a room didn’t have the acoustics to make it known.

The general ambiance was chatter, machines, sometimes a silence that never felt stifling.

“Corley, you look well,” a nurse chirped happily as he took a seat at the nearest cot.

He offered a smile in return before he pulled out a small wedge of glass. Damn, that one actually hurt. There was fresh blood on his fingertips too. Now the nurse’s tone shifted from delighted to demanding.

“Cut that out. What happened?”

“Some glass shattered, kinda got me good, it seems. Hardly even noticed.”

“With all that running around and getting shot, it’s a wonder you can even register pain at all.” The nurse rolled over, snapping her gloves into place as Mark unbuttoned his shirt and let it fall around his shoulders. He leaned forward with his elbows resting on his knees, not feeling a damn thing as she picked out stray shards. One was pulled out from under his ear and a pressure he didn’t realize was in his jaw slowly eased. Nothing seemed to require stitches but she still gave him a few for good measure across his right shoulder. It immediately tightened his range of motion. When he left Mark gave her a curt, unforgiving smile, both of them full well knowing what she had done.

* * *

After it was all said and done, Mark Corley felt okay. That was the best word to describe himself for the past few years since the invasion started. Everything was “okay”. They had jumped ahead centuries in medical and technological knowledge and studies ever since they were given this ship and introduced to an entirely new world among the start; they were capable of reaching distant planets and universes when studying these things had only been a long, drawn-out mission at best. While they may not have found a cure for cancer, they were able to help with a wide variety of disorders and handicaps. They were currently working on finding a way to help with communication with the drones, combining both technology and scientific study together. Synthetic vocal cords and neurotransmitters, reconstructed bones from an amalgam of new metals - they were well on their way.

So why did everything only feel “okay”?

In the last three years, Mark Corley hadn’t been able to have one proper conversation with his own son. He relied on expression alone, on Trent struggling to hold a pen in his claws and write down what he wanted to, or the beginner’s guide to American Sign Language. Muscle memory may have been instant but it was still an unfamiliar body as far as what he had been given until well into his twenties. Even after all that, he still had no idea how either of them felt about all of this. The only one who seemed to be able to speak directly for Trent was Rose,  _ but these days… _

These days, she was barely four years old with the mind and body of an early teen. It made him uncomfortable, as a father before anything else, knowing she was alongside other people without them understanding her situation. Her  _ condition _ . It was a handicap in a way, as the girl suffered from what Mark could only assume were “visions” without having access to a physical alien body and its melding capabilities. As well as being only three years of age and going through the early stages of puberty in a matter of months. It’s what made him immediately defensive regarding the possibilities of anyone looking at her as anyone other than their respective officer. Still, it was as if  _ that _ part of her brain had instead been hardwired to hold a cosmic amount of scientific knowledge. Never mind her ability to remember almost anything she had ever read. He hadn’t raised a daughter so much as he helped an already grown adult get to the right size with some supervision.

He took out the ring he had pocketed from the store, turning it in his fingers a few times. It was the same size, same metal as the one he had given to his wife when he proposed. The ring held no emotional significance but he felt something ( _ closure? _ ) when he held it. No years of attachment and sorrow, yet he couldn’t even loosen his grip as he held it above the empty belly of the ship.

Sure, things were just “okay”.


	5. Trent

For the second time that night, Trent seized in his sleep. The curse of being returned his own memories was that every single ounce of pain and fear he had felt the moment his brain was ripped from his spine was beginning to resurface. Every single time that dream returned, he was choosing to run this time, choosing to actually take his father’s hand and make a last ditch effort to survive. Had he truly expected death in that moment? Would he still have fought despite being reanimated? That was such a disgusting way to put it, though.

The milliseconds it took for his brain to become detached from his former body and swallowed into a bio-gel after harvest had expended to an unending stream of conscious agony. The pain suspended him as much as he had been suspended within. It had been so blinding that, upon reawakening and graced with only moments left of autonomy, all he had been able to do was glance at the hands that were no longer his. Those few moments provided him only the comfort of his pain relieved into a throbbing numbness, before everything went black again. Mark may still  _ call  _ him Trent but most days he felt the furthest from that name. It held a weight over him, being unable to express himself - all his fears and concerns and his paranoia over being in a body that may one day no longer respond to treatment. They knew what to do now but with all this talk of evolution, what was stopping this constructed body from simply giving up?

He was always alone in the same room he had been given years prior. The bed that was made up for him, or any of the alien bodies for that matter, were various sizes of frames and mattresses recycled and shoved together. He fit, although it was awkward to scramble to the side as he tried to now.

Long legs that never felt like his own, certainly never exuding any grace, swung over the side and touched the cold floor of the constructed bedroom. The bodily awareness of things like temperature and touch had never been a concern in the beginning, but he supposed, as Doctor Klanis explained, his brain was beginning to integrate wholly with the new body over the past several years. Every appendage certainly was his own despite the mental disconnection he felt within them. No matter what pain he might feel under the knife and needle he could easily separate his consciousness from his physical form.

It was just as awkward to put his head into his hands. He could feel every ridge of his drone head, four eyes closing tightly until he saw white lights behind them. As opposed to the blue lights that accompanied his nightmare, perhaps it wasn’t all bad. Slowly, he stood, feeling his weight grounding him once again. There was movement to his right and his eyes moved first before anything else, still feeling the exhaustion of the nightmare.

_ Rose. _

In the doorway she stood with all her strange beauty; olive skin, black hair pulled back in a tight braid, and wide, dark eyes that glinted in the lights of the ship outside the cabins. Her hands were together and fingers laced a concern that spilled over into her boring stare. With no mouth to open to express his concern, Trent simply let his shoulders drop and his posture stoop forward. She knew the pain he was in, somehow sensing it across the body of the ship and once more offering her shoulder to lean on. Rose was the little sister he had never asked for or had ever anticipated with the end of the world.

“It’s fine,” she spoke for him. “I figured you’d be having some dreams after what Dad talked about earlier.”

_ Dad _ . And how had she heard?

This was Rose Corley he was talking about, the child whose eyes glimmered opposingly against the blue lights of Harvester ships. The girl who outgrew who clothes nearly every month until as of late. The key component to Trent having fought off a Tanker in the first place. Only then she had been three days old and offering her first words to Mark just an hour later. Trent always felt a hesitancy in facing just how much she was capable of, considering the fact she seemed to be able to dip right into the thought he had trapped inside.

Doing just that, she offered a hand out to him. There was an irritated scar across her palm, once more broken into as Trent enveloped the small hand in his own. A surge of emotion passed through him and into Rose in the form of a mutual shiver. Tears welled in her eyes as she fought the immediate urge to pull away from him. She never did though, even if it meant holding her own arm in place with the other hand. This was how she learned, she explained to him the same night she discovered Melding from Mark.

“I know,” she whispered next, already knowing that Trent had reservations about revealing too much. “It’s been every night for the past week. Don’t act like I don’t know.”

_ I can’t be on this planet anymore. _

“I know.”

She placed her unoccupied hand atop his and offered a smile. It was all she  _ could _ offer.

Rose barely knew the world below, Mark made sure of that. All he ever told her was that the people there were beyond repair and they had done what they could years ago. Those who didn’t think they needed help or didn’t want it had sealed their own fate. Such a blunt way to explain it to a child but her curiosity around the ship had gotten her into plenty of trouble before. This wasn’t a daycare center, he’d tell her, this was what was left of their home. And by the time she took on her medical training alongside what doctors remained, she was fully aware of what people and drones alike were capable of.

“Dad won’t leave again, you know that. Not yet.”

_ When? We have no home left here, none of us do. _

She frowned, finally pulling her hands away from Trent. He staggered, finally breathing the air on his own and falling to sit back on his bed again. Disconnecting was the hardest part. The pressure of agony returned to him, behind his eyes, but he was incapable of tears, of crying, of uttering anything close to a sob. Rose couldn’t hear him anymore but she still offered a hand to his bony shoulder. The two sat in silence for quite a while, at least until Trent felt the weight in his head pull him back into his bed.

Rose stared at him. Trent. The long, thin, alien she called her brother. He was her only family apart from the man she knew had no part in her creation; the crew that looked at her like an answer to a question they couldn’t quite word yet. She touched Trent’s arm again and, upon feeling nothing, seeing only a darkness behind her own eyes, she stood to leave.

Every time their father decided to make some lone run, they both assumed he’d never be back. Part of them had come to terms with the idea already, and they both knew that Mark knew as well. His eyes grew ever distant as the months passed and they looked down on their planet that was slowly draining itself. The population that could help, both human and drone, were aboard and awaiting some miracle - maybe some trip to the outer realms of the universe! All day they drifted between the last layers of the planet’s atmosphere and were no closer to a decision.

Where were they going to go?


	6. Rose

The hub crew worked in several shifts. There were no direct threats to the ship of its crew so every day between eleven in the evening to six in the morning, there was a grace period of silence. No chatter, no people, no work to be done. Everyone went to their respective rooms and slept. Or they went to the newly constructed dining area and discussed the possible inner workings of a complex structure beneath their feet. Or about their day, whichever. More often than not, the crew chose sleep over personal re-connections, so families and friends divided enough as it was without the assistance of half of the crew having been relocated into a different body.

It was three in the morning, give or take, by how they regulated their time around here. Watches were never synced and since nothing was ever planned, it worked out. Rose didn’t plan on sleeping anytime soon after the interruption of her own thoughts with Trent’s across the cabin level. Why she had such a strong connection with him and not Mark, the man who was determined to raise her as much as a civilian as a soldier, she didn’t know. Perhaps it had to do something with the fact his attitude toward her growing rebellious behavior was less than _amused_.

She looked out to the opening of the hub, breath catching in her throat as she remembered to be covert. Once she saw no one was in sight, she exhaled and slipped out from the shadows of her own operation. The consoles in front of the map of the Earth (still so small and questionable in her eyes) were lowered, but she knew how to access them. Few in the ship could, and the answer was clear as to why. _Integration_. The ship responded to her presence the same way it responded to Mark, Trent, and a handful of others that were either drones themselves, or didn’t wish to speak of their time on the ship. Considering everything, Rose understood. 

The second she stood in front of the map, the two consoles roles up, stopping at just her hip as if knowing her exact height. She had only seen her father do this and it seemed like an impossible talent to master, not ever having seen him so much as bat an eye to move anything on the map. Still, she placed her hand to the flat panels and held her breath, expecting some rush of emotions and imagery the way she melded with Trent.

What she didn’t expect was the price paid at the expense of running a ship. Both spires pierced directly into the middle of her palms, locking her in place from both the shock of the pain and the spires themselves. Rose had no hand to cover her mouth with to stop herself from yelling and bite her tongue. It was a pain she could control and tolerate, while the rest slowly pulled from her palms as a numbness set in.

There was no rush of information or knowledge as she figured might happen. She only found herself staring up into the map as it slowly began to turn and zoom in. Not one location on here she couldn’t name from memory but the only cities she had seen in person were vague memories of towering stone and bright lights. Mark had taken her as a child during the grace period of living on Earth to completely committing to the space lifestyle. A neighborhood she was remembering now with a long stretch of road and sharp turns of pavement up to the front doors of houses. Back then it had only been a few months after the end of the world and the lawns were overgrown, trees toppled sideways against the winds of new storms. The map guided her there now, presenting a wire grid layout.

A rush of tears blurred her vision as her fingertips curled against the console and the pain radiated back to her forearms. Everything else had gone numb except for what she could only assume was sadness, staring at the front of the home Mark had been so lenient on spending “just a few more minutes” inside. There were pictures there he needed, albums that he put into his bag before anything else. That was the first time she had seen Trent’s first face without the fog of rushing memories tumbling over fear.

“I miss him too.”

The sharp flinch was enough to disconnect her from the spires, bleeding hands closed into fists. Mark placed a hand on her shoulder, giving a squeeze until she relinquished the wounds to him. Both her hands were taken in his own, thumbs running over the slits in her palm. The bleeding had already stopped and Mark could see the skin already beginning to stitch itself back together. If she was lucky, she wouldn’t be left with any permanent damage.

Mark smiled at that. She was a wonder. A miracle, really.

“You know,” he whispered, thumbs stroking her palms. “When I promised your dad I wouldn’t let anything happen to you, I didn’t think it would mean watching you for every second of every day. Growing up with Trent wasn’t easy, but it took him a bit longer to get where you are now. And neither of you ever listened to me.”

She didn’t have the strength to smile anymore, coming down from the adrenaline rush of acute, severe pain. Rose didn’t even realize she was trembling until Mark pulled her forward and into his arms. There was nothing left to do but wrap her arms around his waist to hold on and listen.

“I was impatient with Trent. After his mother passed away he became a completely different person. He shut off. He hated me, blamed me for what happened and I still tried to push back. Maybe had I given him some room and been able to understand what he was going through as a kid who lost a _parent_ … At that age you still see your parents as immune to most things. He had to see the truth up close and personal.”

Rose felt her eyes shut tight, forehead falling against her father’s chest as a sob overtook her. What she had seen in Mark’s head before was more articulated than Trent’s memories, but just as confusing for someone who didn’t have the experience of loss. Not yet. She knew Mark and Trent weren’t like her, whatever Mark assured her she wasn’t. And seeing Trent’s face as anything but young and smiling after those photos had made her all the more afraid.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered into his chest. He brushed a hand over the top of her head, holding her there for a moment longer. “We’re never going to leave, are we?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart. And frankly I don’t know how. You’ve seen how far we’ve been able to get without losing sight of the planet. It’s a lot for all of us. The only people with any experience living a world behind are the ones trained to leave it.”

He always had something like that to say to put things as finite as possible for Rose. In a way she couldn’t completely understand but was able to grasp the emotional severity of it. They’d leave when they were ready, but after almost three years of waiting, even the youngest passenger of _Cobalt_ had grown impatient.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Sorry, Liam, I have no idea what the ship is named yet so it's getting named after the planet.)
> 
> (Also, note to self - was this the chapter I spaced? I don't remember, maybe, a good chunk of this. or At least I meant to expand on something here - maybe on the script spires vs movie's absence of them. I'll have to rewrite/add something here.)


	7. Mark

Organic beings through all of history required an element in their environment to spark evolution. It took hundreds upon thousands of years for a genetic left-turn to become a prominent element of a species. Nothing was an overnight process, except for perhaps this one time in the universe. Upon the early shift’s reemergence into the bridge, they noticed that an entirely new section of the ship had been discovered, or rather  _ developed _ , overnight. Calvin was the first to call Mark up with him, gesturing to the grid of the ship that had now constructed itself two extensions below the belly of the ship.

“ _ Cannons _ ?” He was stunned, stopping dead the second he realized what shape their ship was beginning to take over their years of manipulating its inner workings.

“Nothing led any of us to believe this was a combat vessel,” Calvin said under his breath. “You look at the old designs of fighter jets and they look like toys compared to what we have now.”

“Yeah, but-- fucking  _ cannons _ ?” Mark turned fully to Calvin, unable to simply turn his head and accept what he was seeing before him as the truth. The man was right; nothing on this ship presented itself as a fighter craft, but more of a mobile lab drifting through space. Having no idea how to even process this, Mark put a hand to his forehead and felt himself utter nonsense.

“Not even the [Tankers] have projectiles,” Calvin continued, crossing his arms tightly. “The longer we stay on this ship the more and more it seems to adjust to us on it. Maybe that’s a good thing, maybe we can really turn shit around and--”

“This is an entire weapons system we don’t even know how to  _ run _ .” As Mark stepped up to the grid, the consoles rose and he placed his hand to the left, not even wincing as he was locked in. The ship had presented itself with the development as soon as its crew was awake. Perhaps it was proud of its new feature, the twin cannons folded out like a t-rex’s two arms with a wheel of light spinning within. As Mark tightened his grip on the console, the twin arms lowered and slowly laced together. There was a low rumble through the ship, a silence befalling everyone as they felt the floor beneath them tremble; the ship breathing a new chance of life.

“Jesus  _ Christ _ , we’ve got a real ship.”

Over the next few weeks the ship began to rebuild itself once more to suit its hosts needs. It was a sudden shift of their two years of work with hallways overlapping and changing and sometimes leading the crew in a circle before they were completely developed. There was only one recorded injury as hollow belly of the ship drew itself a wider rotunda, the installed metal railing snapping and flying suddenly in all directions.

With no way to view the cannon from the outside without descending into the atmosphere, Mark and Trent took the ship down to sit just outside the limits of Staten Island. It was a vacation for some, breathing in the air that tasted sweeter now that wildlife had seeped into the veins of the concrete jungle. To Mark Corley and Calvin Matthews, this was an opportunity to discuss their real plans for what was “next”.

“We have an advantage here, we can take it.”

“And go where?” Mark was unimpressed for some reason and he couldn’t shake it. He’d love to be enthused about the sudden development but his mind kept wandering back to the night he caught Rose at the consoles. There were good reasons to keep her away from receptive parts of the ship, one of them being they didn’t know how the hell it would respond to hybrid DNA. She wasn’t some relocated brain in the body of a worker drone, she was…  _ something _ .

“We’ve got all the confirmation we need that there’s intelligence out there.”

“Something tells me they don’t have a welcome party planned for us.”

“We have their  _ ship _ ,” Calvin growled, stepping in line between Mark and the ship. “It’s been  _ two years  _ without any contact and that’s probably because we haven’t done a damn thing except sit and watch the big blue marble spin. Lord knows we’ve exhausted our efforts.”

Mark’s narrowed eyes moved to meet Calvin. The one guy who didn’t put up with Mark’s unresponsive and vague antics.  _ The one guy not in my fucking way, at least _ . He brought a hand to the light scars on his neck, not taking kindly to remembering what he had seen become of the people down here.

“Don’t you think it’s a little late?” He couldn’t find the power in his voice now, realizing he barely whispered his concern. “Imagine we go out there and there’s actually something or someone waiting there for us. No one came for this ship, there was no retaliation to a goddamn uprising so maybe they were alone too.”

“ _ Who? _ ”

Mark remembered that alien well, its proud and thin frame much taller and developed than the drones it created. The one creature that had a plan with the human race and had either come back to harvest, or conduct its own messed-up experiments. One being more likely than the other, everything considered.

“The alien that came here. I saw them… it… I don’t know. There were other ships, but this one, this was the one that had them. The  _ flagship _ , right?”

Calvin nodded, waiting for Mark to continue.

“Goin’ on three years now I’ve tried to figure out why this happened and no one has come up with a better theory than it was another lifeform’s curiosity. They wanted something from us and they took it. Doesn’t matter if it worked out or not, the result is--”

“People like your daughter.”

“Yeah,” Mark said flatly, not expecting that to get the best of him. “Rose.”

“She’s a fluke of what they intended. And she nearly didn’t survive.”

“Kinda regret letting you in all that, Matthews.”

There was a ghost of a smile, but Calvin just sighed. They had little time to be anything more than working together some greater good of humanity, their survival and arranging a small military formation. Mark sighed as well.

“Really kind of turning this on me, you know? Not wanting to expect the worst of a whole… species, or whatever, just because of one bad thing. You know they killed millions of people, right? Might have been one guy, but--”

Calvin stared right through him.

He knew he was right, that they would have to make the final push and leave. Get out this system and figure it out for themselves. Maybe it would be like the fantasy of it all, where it would work out eventually for the human race, welcomed into the arms of the endless possibilities of the universe. It was mankind betting on stardust; a leap of faith into an abyss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is where I take a break to figure out where I want to go from here. I do know, but how it's executed is still a little shaky. Part of me is waiting for the third movie but that isn't until this December, 2020. There will be a definite, although brief, break from the main plotline to cover some alien ground, followed by a time jump to catch up with everything else.
> 
> If you assume it's going to be like a Mass Effect sort of thing with tiered alien races and a citadel... well, you're not wrong.
> 
> Until next time.


	8. Mark

**_THREE YEARS LATER..._ **

It wouldn’t be the first time that night that Mark tried to shake off what he had seen while trying to sleep. So many questions rattled around in his head for which no answers were able to quiet them. He had excuses, sure, or told himself none of this was a problem, but something had been going on. Behind his back, that’s how he saw it. His son was an adult and could make his own choices, which was just why Mark tried to fight him on becoming some guinea pig for the _Drone Development Project_. Risk of injury, even death, and Mark would be holding it over himself for the rest of his life.

Audrey had taken his place the second he had left the lab and Mark hadn’t thought twice about her concern until he turned around not three seconds to see them standing together. _Close_ together. Hands over clumsy drone hands. There was a prickle up his spine but of course he said nothing. _Trent Corley, despite his newer buggish appearance, is an adult. He can take care of himself_.

Mark sat up.

Audrey had been the only other one in their “original group” that had seen the onboard destruction, the first death of Trent. She had been the one to pull Mark away from his darker thoughts mere days after witnessing the end of his own son, when they were safe, sound, and reunited. There had been little time to properly grieve. Somehow, he had managed, or had been able to cope on a thin line of acceptance. She was a friend, he trusted her, but wouldn’t one of them have said something?

“None of your damn business,” he said aloud to himself, staring across his cabin. The light above him flickered on as it sensed his waking body and he knew he wouldn’t be getting anymore sleep this way. His coat was pulled on and the collar pushed aside, before he ducked out into the hallway to figure shit out on his own. As he always did.

The technology they had now may have been advanced for their time but their quick adaptation hurtling thousands of miles per hour through space had hardened even the most novice of scientists. It had been about two years since the ship’s departure into space with the crew’s refusal to look back. About ninety stayed onboard, with the addition of seventeen drones whose former lives ranged from pilots to astronomers, the latter of which had been an ordeal to organize. Their recruitment had been hasty but those left behind were left in good reason.

This was a military ship now, not a public residency.

Four wings were added into the ship since their departure. The cannons that Rose had managed to summon or create from the depths of the ship’s internal mechanisms were able to join and separate to either up their fire-power or aim fore and aft. What they would need a goddamn cannon for had been their initial thoughts before they quickly realized the threat on the further horizon

What had once been the open floor for their map and “war-room” discussions had adjusted itself to a respective size to contain a round table of crew members. Behind the consoles and their map rose a new stairway that led up into what could only be called the cockpit. There were no controls up there but upon the introduction of two pilots, it provided a holographic two-man rule setup. Each pilot would put one hand on their respective console, acting as their own key to activate. They were partners and required to look out for one another, train together with both the mechanics of flying the actual ship and a plan between tankers.

What had acted as gruesome silos to contain human bodies, long since evacuated, now housed the shells of feeler drones, once it had become obvious that while they could be activated with the injection of a human brain, even with exposure they remained unpredictable and deadly. The hulking mass of biomechanical muscle amid all these lifeless, squid-like bodies, were the remains of an alpha tanker. Many had said in the following days of the initial invasion, there had been dozens scattered across cities and streets, thought to be giant beasts of their own. Only one pilot had ever been designated within, and _she_ had long since been made an example of.

For the better of its remaining construction, there were three pairs of designated pilot teams: Cauffrey and Elliot, Hannah and Jeffries, and Trent and Mark. What travels they had taken during their expedition ranged from figuring out just how far they could go to just how much their own bodies could withstand - either due to exposure or the pressure of containment within suits.

Their first stop had been the simple visit to the moon, the crew acclimating to the fact they were able to see it up close and personal with ease. One giant leap for mankind had become a mere trip to the grocery store in a matter of seconds. After that, it was the simple exploration of their own universe, with the very edges of the solar system still seeming quite out of reach.

How the ship’s internal hub displayed everything was a bit foreign to the human crew, the initial language of the farthest outreach of planets and further solar systems now beginning to take a shape resembling the human alphabet. One or two linguists on board assisted with other attempts at structuring the language. At least the information was there and able to adapt, which confirmed many personal theories about where this particular ship had come from, and if its former crew had been familiar with the rest of the universe. It opened up as much speculation as it did a fear among the ship’s crew - They weren’t alone in the universe, and had never been.

Planet Earth was no longer a one-in-a-million chance or a miracle or some fluke in evolution. If anything, what they could make of it, was that it followed a pattern that reached beyond their own stars. For now, however, they were still so limited in knowledge. Compared to the rest of the universe, they were merely a variable among an unknown amount of attempts. Those who had questioned evolution spoke out against it no longer.

The former hollow belly beneath their medical “auditorium” - which had previously served as a containment for "unactivated" drone shells - had filled out with several other levels that were quickly occupied with equipment brought on board during their last scourge of the planet. From Los Angeles to New York, to Seoul and even naval bases and government medical facilities, they took what they could find. Decades of research was locked away on the lowest level of the carrier, respectively renamed to The Vault. Metal ingrained into biomechanical mesh and became part of the ship. What information became of their new studies was kept close at all times, especially regarding the health of drone bodies.

That was where Mark had turned his attention away from development and research. Whatever happened there was for the greater good of people like his son; good folk that had been robbed of their original bodies with no way of reversing the situation. Even through the basic communication of sign language, or dedicating time to text-to-speech tablets, drones still gave off the most primal hints to their emotions. With so few muscles in the drone’s exoskeletal skull, only the shred of humanity that reflected in four red eyes was a clue of their suffering.

 _Being trapped in their heads all day must really get to them._ Mark could relate.

That didn’t mean he would let his son become a martyr in order to build the stepping stones toward alien communication. There was only so much arguing and reasoning with your nearly eight-foot son until he just turned away and did what he intended to do. It had broken Mark’s heart but he was done letting those sorts of things seep through his usual hard exterior. Ever since Calvin Matthews had told him to his fucking act together as their commander, he had learned to shut it all back away.

Now he stared down from the catwalk at two other unactivated drones, restrained and cut open from bony chin to collar. Strange bodies from the inside out but able to sustain life on its own for at least two years without interruption. They were, however, susceptible to human disease, which has led to plenty of complications in the long-run. Their only saving grace was the trial-and-error attempts of giving them what vaccines they could find, injecting them with both experimental hormones and variant nutrient supplements. The alien crew on board were the result of their attempts, of those who had survived at least.

Their only other idea had been to extract the human brain back out from the drone body and into another, but it was to be believed there would be complications regarding just how developed the drone anatomy had developed around it. That being said, they had all bore witness to how violently these brains had been removed in the first place. Which left their one hesitation at just how much pain the subject would experience before a successful re-transfer.

Not everything was easy, even with advances. So many questions were being asked and left unanswered. The entire setback of the human race still followed them.

***

The plan, according to Sahir Para who oversaw internal and transfer experiments, was to go with their gut and work from the inside out with what sort of medical trauma the drone bodies could endure. It never made sense to Mark, who didn’t think any further than the idea of something foreign being shoved into his son’s throat or into his spine. Or the risk of him simply not being able to take more trauma, or not wanting to. Many drones were capable of feeling and expressing pain, that much had become obvious once the integration of human and alien DNA had been able to develop over several years in peace.

At that point the humane thing to do _would_ be to rip out the brain like it was band-aid off a scab...

It was Sahir who now stood apart from the two excavated bodies below, muttering to himself with a thumb and forefinger pressing into his temples. Seven hours before, Trent had been put under to begin the initial testing of vocal cord implants, where Audrey had that emotional support Mark had hardly provided ever since Trent was a boy. He had been a man of bad habits back then, too.

“That better not be my kid down there,” Mark called out, unaware of how many other medical officials he startled through the carrier. Despite being hollow aside from shelved platforms, his voice did not carry too far, but enough for Sahir to turn his gaze up. There was a smile despite the two having never met eye to eye. Medical man versus the dogged Mark Corley. Plenty went wrong when it came to diplomatic arrangements.

“You should be so lucky,” Sahir shouted back. “It would be your perfect excuse to throw me over the railing.”

That much they could agree on.

It took only about fifteen seconds to get to the lower floor and meet Sahir, with Mark stopping a few feet away from the drones rather abruptly. While these unactivated bodies didn’t decompose like anything natural, their insides still reeked of freshly-cut onion grass. Sahir didn’t look in the least bit bothered, but he had been working over these bodies for years now.

“Don’t look so upset, they’ve never been activated.”

_Meaning they’ve never been “people”._

“That’s really the word you’re going with?” Mark tried to make covering his mouth and nose look casual, and failed. Sahir offered a mask and after some hesitation, Mark took it and pressed the fabric to his face. It smelled fresh, but not something he could readily identify. Right now it was just a relief. Sahir pushed his round glasses up to his forehead, rubbing at the sore bridge of his nose before they were replaced.

“I’d love to say that after all this time we’ve figured things out, but you know we haven’t. Any species whose driving force and sole population on a battleship is powered by human batteries is well organized or at least intelligent in their own planning. They don’t waste their own sentient kind and seek out others as slaves.”

“So,” Mark drawled, looking the alien cadaver up and down. “What we figured aliens were in the beginning, right?”

“Correct,” Sahir said pointedly. He absently cracked his knuckles. It drove Mark up the wall. “Or what I could agree with you on. There have always been those theories that human beings were planted on this earth by someone else, and this only makes me believe it myself.”

“A man of science…”

“What we once held as fact has since been thrown to the four winds, Mister Corley.”

It wasn’t the first time Mark had been told this, at least not in this way and by Sahir Para himself. He had been appointed an “overseer” of any medical studies or experiments; something that Mark had no idea about anyway. His specialty really brewed down to being a sweaty, blunt, ignorant cop. Still, he nodded like he understood the gravity of it. Decades could pass, his hair could gray in space, and he would still never be able to fully grasp that both his born-son and adopted daughter were human-alien hybrids.

“I know you’re here for Trent,” Sahir continued, turning back to his work. Mark tried not to stare as the doctor, instead of being able to make a Y-incision in the chest cavity, had to work with carbide-coated rib cutters to break into the body. “And I advised him of the risks of volunteering himself, especially as one of our more experienced pilots. There were a lot of questions but as you know we are struggling with communication first.”

“It’s why we arranged the DDP.”

“Well, _you_ didn’t.” Sahir glanced over his shoulder. Mark stiffened.

“I just think there may be limits.”

“You think it puts your son, whom you’ve already lost once, at risk of dying again.” Sahir turned his back to the cadaver’s table and leaned against it. That bothered Mark, who was already distracted, conflicted, what Sahir had so obviously pointed out about him. When he didn’t respond, the doctor continued. “What we’ve found so far is that over the years of this human brain’s integration with an alien hull is that the hull acts as a blank slate, almost how a virus works taking in DNA and mutating. While they are no more human than this one on the table, their brain stem has fully reformed to the body’s new skull and spine. I theorized that it would take about a year for the cerebellum to overcome the initial trauma and regrow.”

“Like roots. What science did you base that on? Brain transplants never, you know, _worked_.”

“I based it on the possibility that another race had perfected such a transplant. Obviously it’s not for the patient’s gain but their own. A workforce and a hivemind. As to why they developed this technology isn’t where my expertise comes in.”

Sahir had successfully deterred Mark’s attention away from his original concerns, grappling him with others that had never really concerned him before. Theories were one thing, but he didn’t have enough education to put any of these theories to paper in a way that scientists and doctors on the ship could attempt. That’s why it was left up to people like Sahir.

“You know, the only way to find out is to try.” Sahir’s voice barely reached Mark. “Your son isn’t fearless, but he’s a fighter. Right now, we’re better off assuming that integrating further with the ship will reveal more answers to us. We have yet to even get in touch with whatever the hell is out there.”

Sahir was stalling, watching Mark have some nuclear meltdown at a microscopic scale. His gloves were removed and glasses pushed up his forehead again as he dug the heel of his palm against it.

“It’s late, Mark. You should try to get some sleep. I appreciate your concern or your son but if anything had gone wrong you’d be the first to know - and the first to try and kill one of us. He’s still under and the surgery is minimal considering this kind of body.”

 _And the fact it had practically taken hedge-clippers to cut into it._ A hollow laugh came from Mark, deep within his chest where a breath had been held. He wanted to ask more about the procedure, about Audrey, about things he knew Sahir Para didn’t have the answers to. Even if he _could_ answer them it would all go over Mark’s head. He knew it.

“Can I just… sit? For a minute?”

Normally, Sahir would have said no, but he heard the way the question was framed. It was helpless. Mark Corley showed a weakness. He sighed and gave in. Neither of them were sleeping anytime soon anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was all over the place and a chapter I kept coming back to night after night having no real direction for. The jump of three years to add five total years to the roster was a bit of a stretch in the beginning, but one I wanted to get out of the way as painlessly as possible. There is a filler chapter missing between this one and the one before it, one that would show the other side of the coin in the form of a distress signal and introducing a possible other alien race - but in the end, I am rather lazy, preoccupied, and take what I can get when writing for myself and no one else. I wanted to cover some ground with the ship's development and where science stood with the pilot folk.
> 
> Of course, there was a lot more planned to be written but it was cut in half, mentally, for me. There's a lot of work that goes into me finding my old notes and writing new ones in the ways of actual, real-life medical procedures, and making up new crap to remember for later - like the possible implant of synthetic vocal cord systems in an exoskeleton?
> 
> Ah well! I can always edit it / add to it another time. Just wanted to update.


	9. Trent

The Voice had visited Trent several times in his sleep. It was familiar but never something he could pinpoint and recognize if he listened hard enough. That required a strength he didn’t possess in his dreams, no matter how lucid. It simply talked to him, referring to him by name, asking if he could hear them. Somehow he had replied, and heard his own voice for the first time in nearly six years. That alone had been startling, but never enough to shake him awake. And when he did wake up, all recollections of the strange voice and his own would fade within minutes of his panic.

If he could still sweat, he knew he would have been doing just that.

The Voice had been the one to tell him to take a chance and rely on the  _ Drone Development Program _ . The Voice had reassured him that they were going to be fine and, even though The Voice wasn’t completely sure what direction they were headed. The Voice spoke to him as a friend and not an omnipotent being; instead one that was aware of as much as Trent had been in the developing studies of both aliens and the alien ship. At first, he had even assumed the ship was reaching out to them, developing a “motherly” personality among the pilots that had been birthed from her.

It was only when he was slipping into unconsciousness on the medical table that he recognized The Voice as it spoke to him and spoke words of encouragement and hope for his recovery. When darkness enveloped him, a controlled and waking conscious suppressed by anesthetic, he could hear his own voice again, calling out.

_ Rose? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is this, a chapter for ants? I wanted to catch up on individual characters and this is short for now but I'll mull it over later. Wanted to drop this and move on to Rose who, for how I have her written, has a much more complex three years to gloss over. With her lookin' like an adult and all but only being actually five and working so hard to make it possible that creeps (yanno, the 0 people reading this) don't make it gross and weird.


End file.
